


then we shall need each other

by WET_NOODLES



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi | Fire Emblem: Binding Blade
Genre: Cute Animal Fic, F/F, I just went off the Wiki spellings... we need an official localization..., I'm incapable of writing anything without angst, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:19:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WET_NOODLES/pseuds/WET_NOODLES
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A doting master and her pets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	then we shall need each other

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2016 FE Femslash Week prompt, "Secret"!

The butcher's sack, warm to the touch, hung heavy against Milady's back. A row of roost tower wyverns stirred at her passing—some bobbing their heads, some croaking plaintively and flicking their wings—while others watched from their perches, placid and unblinking. Triffine dropped onto the staircase landing with a thump, tail coiled expectantly around her bulk. Her quavering greeting echoed up the tower's heights, and a second wyvern shrieked back from the lofts.

“You're an eager one, aren't you?” Milady said, stepping around her mount. She hoisted the sack from her shoulder and let it fall to the floor. Trifinne nosed the bag of offal onto its side, spilling the contents over the roost's iron grating. Giving a perfunctory flicker of her tongue, the beast lifted her head.

“What? Don't give me that look.” Milady dropped her hands to her side. “This is all I have for you. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Lugh spoiled you with his tarts.”

Triffine whistled from her throat and shoved past Milady, her offering forgotten. Milady turned to find Guinivere, Queen of Bern, adorned in a rich traveler's cloak, clutching the wyvern by the cheeks and pressing her brow to Triffine's nose.

“Forgive me,” she began, pulling away to meet Milady's eyes. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

Triffine broke from the Queen's grasp to nuzzle her chest.

“Down,” Milady warned sharply, shoving her mount's head aside to attend to her queen. “My liege, I should be the one to beg your forgiveness—”

Guinivere's hushed her with a hand against her cheek, stroking with her thumb to the corner of Milady's mouth.

“Please,” she said. “Let us do away with the formalities. I trust the wyverns can keep a secret.”

Milady was ready to argue the point, but she yielded to Guinivere's touch, turning her face into her palm and planting a kiss against the crease.

“Very well… Guinivere,” she murmured, stepping to close the space between them. A soft, shrill whine, belonging to neither woman nor wyvern, sounded from within the folds of the queen's cloak. Milady started back.

“Oh!” Guinivere folded her arms over her chest. “Speaking on the matter of secrets, I followed you here for a reason.”

Triffine bowed her head, nostrils fluttering as she took in Guinivere's scent. Guinivere opened her arms, and two black, shiny eyes blinked over the collar of her gown. Milady gave herself a moment to take in the sight.

At last, she asked, “What are you doing with a pup down the front of your dress?”

“He's a fox,” Guinivere said. “And I rescued him from one of the woodwards.”

“My question still stands, I'm afraid. It's a wild animal.”

Guinivere drew the kit close, as if shielding it from the affront of Milady's suggestion.

“He's only a kit, Milady, and he's no more a wild animal than Triffine.”

The wyvern, staring blankly into the center distance, lifted her head at the sound of her name.

“Wyverns are bred for utter loyalty to their masters,” said Milady. “I have no intention of arguing with you, but I confess I have my doubts. And it's… biting you.”

More accurately, Guinivere was presenting her finger like a chicken bone, delighting in the kit's open-mouth, ineffectual gnawing.

“He's playing. Has Triffine never mouthed you or chased you?” Guinivere tickled the underside of the kit's chin, and Triffine edged closer to inspect the specimen. “I think she likes him.”

“She thinks you're feeding her.” It wasn't entirely true—Triffine wouldn't have been hungry, and there's not much meat to be found on a fox—but it was her last line of defense before she finally relented.

“I'll abide by it,” Milady started, “but I am also sworn to protect you. The moment it develops a taste for human flesh, I'll see to it that it's returned to the wilderness.”

Guinivere fell quiet, and Milady worried that her tone had come across too harshly. But her smile, though wistful, was genuine.

“Of course,” said Guinvere. “There will come a time when… his teeth will sharpen into points, and draw blood. He can't stay a sweet little kit forever.”

The gentle swish of wingbeats filled the silence. Milady was gripped with an urge to take Guinivere's hands and coax the words out of her.

“I was only thinking,” Guinivere said. “My brother had given me a pet fox once, when I was a little girl. I hadn't kept it long enough to see it grow—and now I wonder, sometimes, if...”

Her gaze swept over Milady, and then to the fox, burrowing close to her collar.

“Guinivere?” Milady tried. The soldier that she was, a part of her resisted such tokens of their familiarity, even when there was no one but the wyverns around to witness them.

“It's nothing to trouble yourself over.” Guinivere's smile warmed before she took the initiative, slipping her hand into Milady's. “I think… I would have very much liked to have someone like you in my life, when I was that young. And I'm grateful to know you now. Grateful that you yet remain by my side, no matter my antics.”

Milady couldn't think of a less romantic environment for such talk. Fumbling gamely on ahead, she moved close to kiss the golden hair over Guinivere's brow. The kit squirmed in protest between them.

“If that fox relieves itself on you, I'll not let you hear the end of it,” Milady said flatly. Still, she ventured to touch it through her riding gloves, and the beast yielded easily to the contact. “Hm.”

“You must have an affinity for creatures,” laughed Guinivere, stroking the kit's fur until she arrived to the back of Milady's hand, and lingering there. There came that whine again; Milady thought to herself, _so must you_ , but decided the better of speaking it aloud. And then: _but for we, your creatures, there can be no kinder master._


End file.
